The 1986 Formula One season was the 37th FIA Formula One World Championship season. It commenced on March 23, 1986, and ended on October 26 after sixteen races. The season culminated in a points battle between the Williams duo of Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell versus McLaren's Alain Prost at the final race, the 1986 Australian Grand Prix. Mansell's tyre blew in spectacular fashion and Piquet, in the lead at the time of the incident, was brought in for an unscheduled pit stop soon afterward by Williams to prevent the same happening to his tyres. This enabled Prost to take the lead and the race victory and to secure his second consecutive drivers championship. For the first year, turbocharged engines were compulsory due to a ban on naturally aspirated engines. The law banning atmospheric engines was rescinded in 1987, in preparation for a ban on all forced induction engines for 1989. The Formula One cars of 1986 are the most powerful F1 cars to ever have raced. There were still no limits on engine power, and some engines, including the BMW M12 1.5 single turbocharged straight-4 engine used by the Benetton, Brabham and Arrows teams could throw out 1,350+ hp at 5.5 bar boost during qualifying, this would happen when the engineers took the boost restrictors off the engine; although it would only last for 3 laps at full use. The boost of the engines would often be restricted to the point where they would only be producing around 900-1,000 hp during the race. Wikipedia [ - ]

The 1986 Formula One season was the 37th FIA Formula One World Championship season. It commenced... [ + ]